US stocks today: S&P 500, Nasdaq edge lower as tech shares slide

U.S. stocks ​finished slightly lower on Wednesday with falling technology shares, but gains in Meta Platforms provided some support along with comments from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh that inflation risks had eased recently. Warsh also said he will stick firmly to the U.S. central ‌bank’s 2% inflation ⁠target and “disappoint” ⁠anyone who expects loose monetary policy despite President Donald Trump’s call for interest rate cuts.

Oil prices rose sharply at the start of ​the Iran war. Traders slightly pared their rate-hike expectations as Warsh spoke, but they still expect at least one hike ​from the U.S. central bank this year, according to data compiled by LSEG. Shares of Meta Platforms rallied after Bloomberg News reported that it is building a cloud business to sell excess AI computing capacity.

“This does ​seem to be something that is likely to continue to help the ⁠stock,” said ‌Tim Ghriskey, senior portfolio strategist at Ingalls & Snyder in New York. “It has underperformed the ​Mag 7 group” ​of other megacap stocks. Meta shares remain down for the year to date.

An ⁠index of semiconductors was off sharply.

Investors are keeping a close eye ​on talks between the U.S. and Iran and they remain cautious, especially ​with a long U.S. holiday weekend coming up, Ghriskey said.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 lost 14.34 points, or 0.19%, to end at 7,485.02 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 169.56 points, or 0.65%, to 26,044.16. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.62 points, or 0.01%, to 52,315.58.The key monthly U.S. jobs report is due out on Thursday, while the market will be closed Friday ahead of the Fourth ‌of July holiday. U.S. Vice President JD Vance said discussions between the U.S. and Iran were going well as they held indirect technical talks in Qatar about the Strait of ​Hormuz on Wednesday, ​adding Washington would not return to ⁠full combat unless necessary. The U.S. and Iran signed an interim accord last month. Investors are also digesting data from the Institute for Supply Management that showed U.S. manufacturing activity had slowed in June but was ​still solid.The day’s lackluster performance comes after a strong second quarter for the indexes. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite registered their biggest quarterly gains since 2020, while the Dow marked its best showing since 2022.

Among the day’s decliners, shares of Alcoa fell after Australia’s South32 agreed to sell most of its aluminium assets to Alcoa.